UNICEF: Half of All Refugees Are Children
(headline for news story of the fact)
E stands for emergency
F for fund
And the C—well, that’s
For the halves of us
Our own,
Who deserve innocence
In which to incubate
Play and siblings whole
On learning rolls
Harmed only through
Mischief cared for
In embracing arms
Rob these ones of life
When you die
They will inherit
And make a world
As hate-able
As they find
When we treat them
And on
the altars
of the world
Autumnal Oracle
Eating soft candies,
Scary pre-season
These are, well, all
On sale too early
Shapes of ghosts
And bats, since
Hallowe’en creeps
In from weeks
Ahead
I want rehearsal
Practice of time,
A witch-spell nearly
Ready to be cast
Haunting for a
Fool, the wise
Child’s knowing
Fear for shapes
Of story’s eyes in
Spectral-black
Branches made of
Arms of spikes
That reach down
Toward me
I treat myself to
A bargain invocation,
Reviving the thrill
Of a house of wraiths
Night-dark on
A bright horizon
One One September
It’s September, soon enough becomes September eleven nine-One-One used in mockery of our emergency-numeral series one plane crashes in my state; I’ve been driving by the site as it’s reclaimed
Remember, remember, eleven September—maybe we’ll be Singing that someday; not yet for the hurt only begins in telling launched a war already waged elsewhere: rightly or wrongly, it’s mattered in a vital way since then—we know the cost of some complacency, and maybe one day we’ll move on toward waging peace that has been paid for in a cost of surprise and blood broken bone and steel, symbolic of a need to fix our raging planet
Inside Total Turmoil
well, it’s closed
the school is closed
and will not reopen
another one dies,
so what
capitalism’s cost
risk in investment,
hoped-for profit
returned plus
much, much more
except currency
was learning and
has now been
spent
fortunes expended
for the price of
anticipation
were wrong
things misdirected
done? most likely—
but that is
nothing to do
with me or mine,
whose goodness
is now out of
pocket, too
I trust only from a
flattened place
learners will see
new direction:
fair winds, then, all
whose needs must
journey
cool water on
another side, all
who thirst
(the school where I taught has closed—anyone knowing of a job for a used English teacher or
religious educator, well, maybe you could please let me know)
Chlorine
It kills our people
We cannot breathe
And when we do
Oxygen is poison
We are Aleppo
Please save us from
Your warring efforts
To bring peace by
Delivering to us the
Gas bombs first
Mustard gas from the First World War. Dissolving lung tissue. There are reasons—compelling decent reasons—for not using these. When we do, we surrender all humanity. Starting with ours.
Meet You at G20
“gaps of trust”
which I first read as “gaps of dust”
USA and Russia
Obama and Putin
we cannot see each other
for gaps of dust
which might be all that’s left
if we don’t see better
look harder
for the truth of us
C L Couch
End of Term
End of term
Like a germ
Here I squirm
At the berm
Not so firm
Temp’ or perm’
I can worm
Like Mouse Herm’
Drang und Sturm
Pachyderm
Garfield, Nerm’
Wayback, Sherm’
teachers doodle, too
Voiceless
Who has no voice
Has had it taken away
We cry when born
We speak into the world
Who might grab that
With metal hands
And plastic intention
Abducting
Our first talent
Who has nothing
Will take yours, take
Mine
Save for the parable
And prophecy of Nathan
In which one who has
Too much
Takes more
Takes yours, takes mine
C L Couch
Nykea Aldridge
(Chicago, Illinois)
She was a mom—I
Have to say was—on
Her way to school
To register her child,
Her younger charge
In a stroller Nykea
Was also attending
She was shot and
Killed; two brothers
Are now charged
There’s so much I don’t
Know, but we know
This:
Parents should not
Die this way, nor should
Anyone
clcouch123 
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